The Energy Lab is one of the few architectural testimonies to the early days of the energy transition. The building went into operation in 1982 and was exceptionally energy-efficient for those times. University of Oldenburg / Daniel Schmidt
The roof terrace of the DLR Institute of Networked Energy Systems provides a fantastic view of the University’s sports ground – and of the Energy Lab, whose grey wooden façade dotted with blue solar panels peeks out between the trees. The path joining the two buildings is not a long one, and they have many other things in common. “The Oldenburg site started with energy systems research, then switched its focus to energy-related materials research, and has now gone back to energy systems research,” explains Prof. Dr Carsten Agert, Director of the institute.
After Luther left the University in the mid-1990s, his successor, Physics Prof. Dr Jürgen Parisi, focused on the search for new materials that could efficiently convert solar energy into electricity. He was very successful: “The timing was perfect, the photovoltaics research in Wechloy got off to a flying start, expanded and made a name for itself,” Agert recounts. This success contributed to the establishment of a new affiliated institute at the University in 2008, the NEXT ENERGY – EWE Research Centre for Energy Technology, which, with its focus on photovoltaics, fuel cells and energy storage, was the forerunner of today’s DLR Institute. “Back then, materials and components were a key topic in the discussion about the energy transition, because photovoltaics, fuel cells and batteries were still very expensive,” explains Agert, who has headed the Oldenburg DLR Institute since its founding.
In 2017, when NEXT ENERGY found a new home at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the photovoltaics industry was in crisis and it had become clear that the main challenge would be to find ways to properly integrate renewables, with their fluctuating energy outputs, into the energy grid. “Consequently, the institute focused entirely on systems research,” says Agert. Today, its ten research groups investigate topics such as energy management in smart power grids, integration of energy sectors and the modelling of power grids and energy systems.
Information technology plays a key role in the energy transition, says Prof. Dr. Astrid Nieße, head of the Digitalised Energy Systems Group at the University of Oldenburg and Executive Board Member of the R&D Division Energy at the OFFIS Institute for Information Technology, one of the University’s affiliated institutes. “New IT-based approaches are a game changer in the transition to a sustainable energy system,” she emphasises. With four energy informatics professorships and a junior research group focused on energy, Oldenburg’s Department of Computing Science is well positioned in this field, she notes.
As head of the Future Laboratory Energy, a large collaborative project funded by the state of Lower Saxony, Nieße is working hard to advance smart energy management systems, simulation models and energy scenarios, and to streamline collaboration between the various players in energy systems research. The goal is to integrate millions of photovoltaic systems, battery storage units, heat pumps and electric cars as well as thousands of wind turbines without destabilizing the power grid. Easier access to data and software is essential, says the IT expert. Under her leadership, the NFDI4Energy consortium works across Germany to make energy systems research more transparent and – thanks to digitalisation – more efficient.
Nieße and her research group at the University study how artificial intelligence (AI) and the principle of so-called controlled self-organisation can be used to stabilise energy systems. “Controlled self-organisation means that the individual components of the system are equipped with autonomous software that controls their operation – but in a safe mode,” she explains.
People involved in the Future Laboratory investigate how this and other energy informatics solutions can be put into practice on a small scale in three “smart neighbourhood” pilot projects in in the north German federal states of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein. “Neighbourhoods are an important part of the transition, but in Germany, for example, citizen-driven energy systems or energy cooperatives are not yet standard practice,” Nieße explains. Which is one more reason for the researchers to simulate concepts like electric mobility in the three pilot neighbourhoods. One of these neighbourhoods – Helleheide – is located in Oldenburg.
It’s a Tuesday in March 2023. Two members of the ENaQ (Energetic Neighbourhood Fliegerhorst Oldenburg) project group are giving a guided tour of the former Oldenburg Air Base site. The focus of the tour is a section covering around five hectares in the northern part of the site which is currently under construction: the Helleheide neighbourhood. The whole area is still fenced off; the future living lab is still just a large hole in the ground. But it will soon be home to a climate-friendly neighbourhood where as much energy as possible is generated and consumed locally – not yet fully climate-neutral, but certainly very close to what the Oldenburg researchers led by Joachim Luther envisioned almost fifty years ago. In 2025 around 350 people will move into seven buildings on the site and make communal use not only of the energy but many other things, including a launderette and a meadow orchard.
“It’s wonderful that people will actually live there and go about their normal lives,” says Prof. Dr Sebastian Lehnhoff, head of the project consortium, which includes many of the stakeholders in Oldenburg’s energy sector, and Chairman of the Board of the OFFIS Institute. The project is not just about researching technologies but also about the “interface with humans”, he emphasises. Oldenburg citizens were invited to express their wishes and requirements for the climate-friendly residential area in a participatory process that was organised and evaluated by a team from the University led by sustainability economist Prof. Dr Bernd Siebenhüner, among others.
One idea that emerged was the “energy traffic light”, a small lamp that is plugged into a socket and goes green when there is plenty of green electricity in the grid. “Ideally, users will switch on their appliances during that time,” explains project worker Maren Wesselow. The traffic light device offers a simple solution to avoid load peaks within the neighbourhood. A preliminary test in Oldenburg showed that many of the participants used larger electrical appliances more conscientiously thanks to this device – although this didn’t save them any money because the tariff system still lacks the necessary flexibility.
A digital platform is also in the pipeline to encourage Helleheide’s residents to save more energy. Users will be able to track things like how much money their solar panels are currently earning, or consumption levels in their own household, their street, or the neighbourhood as a whole. “Comparing yourself with others can be very effective,” says Lehnhoff.
He stresses that the success of the energy transition hinges not only on new technologies, but on people accepting them. This means that the social sciences play a key role in the current phase of the energy transition, and the University has an important contribution to make. “Energy research at the University has always been transdisciplinary,” he explains, adding that over the years an intense and unique interdisciplinary collaboration has developed between the University’s energy informatics, wind research, social sciences and economics departments and the affiliated OFFIS and DLR Institutes. “We’ve been doing this for a long time,” Lehnhoff underlines, “and we’re really good at it.”
This page contains automatically translated content.
